Everquest 2: SOE remove subscriptions from the marketplace.

Just jumping in to let you know this was indeed an intentional change. This decision was partially based on the very limited utilization of this feature.

Regards,

I had laser eye surgery today, and can barely see straight, so I’m going to make this quick and blunt.

Do not lie to me. Just don’t.

It has been done so that players cannot buy their gametime using Station Cash that they have purchased during sales, allowing them to get their subs at a discount.

I know a great many players who pay for their gold subscriptions that way. I am one of them, as I’ve been working through my pile of Station Cash before I get forcibly transferred to ProSiebenSat against my will. Actually, if not many people use the option (which I doubt), that would be an argument for keeping the feature, not removing it.

Regardless of whether SOE’s own decisions on whether to ever permit it were a good idea or not, we bought our Station Cash on the understanding that it could be used for that purpose. Quietly removing that option, particularly without warning, is a classic bait and switch manoeuvre, leaving us with practically worthless corporate scrip. I didn’t purchase that scrip for buying fluff items.

As players, we cannot allow companies to take our money for their fakey magic currencies, and then completely change the rules. It is utterly disrespectful, and quite likely illegal in certain jurisdictions that actually give a damn about consumer rights. Whether or not you play EQ or EQ2, you should be concerned that this sort of behaviour could become commonplace in the MMO industry if it does not meet with sufficient pushback.

I suspect we’ll be discussing this nonsense on next Tuesday’s Three MMOsketeers.

Math is hard. Especially in marketing departments around the world. They love to make up promotions on the fly as long as they sound good. The consequences for their pricing are often not considered.

Look at all the airlines who’d rather not want to have their loyalty programs anymore or who have changed their terms recently. I know of many casino promotions where people with some background in statistics could make a small fortune.

I just don’t get it, aren’t they doing some kind of impact analysis of their promotion beforehand? A one hour brainstorming session would bring up issues like this one immediately. Or at least measure results after the fact?

All we know now is the fact that SOE is not the best when it comes to running a business and could use improvement.